Showing posts with label NSW government. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NSW government. Show all posts

Tuesday 16 May 2023

YAMBA STATE OF PLAY: an example of state and local government wilful blindness that continues to this very day


A view of the lower section of Carrs Drive,
West Yamba Urban Release Area
IMAGE: Clarence Valley Independent, 7 May 2023










The original 127ha West Yamba Urban Release Area (WYURA) sits on a 690ha natural flood storage plain

This was an established fact in the early 1990s when urban settlement of this area was first mooted. It was still an established fact in 1995 when the local council adopted its Land Use Strategy

It remained an established fact when WYURA first came into effect in 2010 with amendments to the Maclean LEP 2001 allowing the amalgamated Clarence Valley Council to house between 2,000-2,500 people on flood liable land within a reduced 121ha urban release area.

It continued as an established fact in 2015 when Clarence Valley Council confirmed its ongoing intention to allow more dwellings per hectare via manufactured housing estates and therefore more people to be settled on this floodplain within the larger Lower Clarence River floodplain

Something then Clarence Valley Mayor and current NSW Nationals MLA for Clarence Richie Williamson called "good news for local development". Going on to say; "There's between 950 to 1000 lots and other land owners in the area will be moving forward with their developments. It's a massive development." 

It was an established fact in the years from 2015 to the present day, during which Clarence Valley Council received at least 9 largescale and 2 small scale subdivision applications on this flood liable land.

Look at that photograph again. At best, even with planned landfill this area will see 2,000+ men, women and children isolated in their homes when the road system is cut off by flood waters. 

Literally many hundreds of these residents will be retirees - with sometimes high levels of physical vulnerabilities. It is hard to see how emergency services, in a Yamba containing est. 7,000-8,000 residents by the time West Yamba is almost fully developed, will be able to cope during inundation caused by high rainfall events combining with a large riverine floods or heavy ocean storm surges.

The property developers don't care what the future holds, so it's more than time for Clarence Valley Council and the NSW Minns Government to enter emergency discussions concerning an immediate moratorium of further development in the West Yamba Urban Release Area.


Friday 5 May 2023

Yet another Northern Rivers forest protector is before the NSW court


IMAGE: Echo, 4 April 2023


 

Forest protector 23 year-old Kashmir Miller (Bachelor of Laws with First Class Honours, Southern Cross University) who suspended herself in a tree on a 25m high platform by a rope attached to three NSW Forestry machines in Doubleduke State Forest in early April has had her case adjourned until 11 May 2023, when as R v Kashmir Miller Case No. 2023/00108712 it is scheduled for Ballina Local Court where it is listed as Mention (Police).


Background


Echo, 20 April 2023:


Forest defender Valerie Thompson will today face court in Ballina after she was arrested for stopping forest operations in Doubleduke State Forest north of Grafton.


Ms Thompson sat high in a tree on a platform, in what is referred to as a tree sit, which was attached to logging equipment and stopped logging for 30 hours in early March this year.


The conflicts in Doubleduke have been ongoing, with NSW Forestry Corporation accused of multiple breaches of harvesting laws including failing to map all giant trees and habitat trees.


On Friday last week the EPA instructed the Forestry Corporation to stop work, which is a temporary victory for the forest defenders. Ms Thompson’s protest was carried out while the EPA was carrying out its investigation into breaches that have since been upheld. Ms Thomson faces charges relating to entering a closed forest and interfering with timber harvesting equipment.....


NSW Environment Protection AuthorityNews16 April 2023:


The EPA has acted on community concerns about giant trees in Doubleduke State Forest on Bundjalung Country near Grafton, leading the Forestry Corporation of NSW (FCNSW) to voluntarily suspend tree harvesting there.


Update: 20 April 2023

 

FCNSW has completed a remap of active harvest areas as requested by the EPA on 14 April 2023.


The additional mapping provides assurance to the EPA and the community that all retained trees in active harvest areas have been identified and mapped.


Having regard to remapping works undertaken by FCNSW, a voluntarily suspension of operations is no longer requested by the EPA.....

 

Logging is again underway in Doubleduke State Forest. It is not certain that it was ever temporarily suspended in practice.


Tuesday 25 October 2022

STATE OF PLAY NSW 2022: In a changing climate is your local council and the regional planning panel in your area really taking into consideration all state policies, acts & regulations applicable to flooding?


 

In a changing climate whose effects and negative impacts have been driven home to NSW communities since the mega bushfires of 2019 and the increasingly heavy rainfall events across the state, there is a need for communities to ensure their wellbeing and safety is paramount in the minds of all those making policy and/or planning decisions concerning the local government areas and regions in which they live.


The widespread and catastrophic flooding to date in 2022 highlighting the need to ask this particular question.


Is my local council and, the NSW regional planning panel in my area which has authority to consent to state significant and high dollar value development applications, really obeying all the planning instructions that have been put in place since 2020?


In July 2021, the NSW Government updated its guidance to councils on considering flooding in land-use planning. 


Set out below is the "Flood prone land package" concerned residents, ratepayers and community groups can use as part of their own checklists when trying to ensure that proposed land releases and large-scale development applications have been genuinely assessed against growing flood risks.








Sunday 16 October 2022

Valley Watch Inc takes Clarence Valley Council to the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal seeking an honest answer as to the exact number of Yamba dwellings identified as having floor levels below modelled flood inundation heights

 

Over my lifetime I have lived in eight local government areas.


During my childhood years only one impinged on my consciousness, when community resistance to a proposed council measure saw parents & children armed with buckets of paste, large paintbrushes and posters, out after dark on the back of a truck deployed to festoon telegraph poles & public buildings with sentiments opposing the proposition.


It was also the first time I began to realise that local government was a point at which competing interests vied to be heard and an arena it which every interest hoped to prevail.

 

It was brought home to me when returning from attending a council meeting, a neighbour entered my family home exultantly crying “The mick’s have it! We won!”.


It was during those early years that I also began to learn that both state government and local council decisions about where to create new urban precincts can have unexpected consequences for families purchasing a home. In my case the lesson came with fast moving flash flooding, which sent water rushing under dwellings in a largescale housing project built on sloping former farmland land at the fringes of a city. Carving away clay and soil from foundations and making timber houses quiver like jellies on their newly exposed, vulnerable brick piers.


Over the years since then I have watched local government grow more complex and in many ways more powerful. With its elected arm frequently highly politicised and its administrative arm intent on imposing its own will on council decision making as its default position in relation to planning matters.


I have lived long enough to see more and more cities, suburbs, towns and villages expand their built footprints until they began to fill New South Wales coastal floodplains and, in the last three decades noted that this particular planning strategy has been repeatedly warned against.


I have also watched with both interest and sometimes alarm as vested interests have grown even more powerful when it came to deciding if, where and when areas on those floodplains should be turned into mile after mile of family homes just as vulnerable to the forces of nature as was that family home of my childhood. Still being built as mine was to designs and with materials which were never fully capable of withstanding severe storms, floods, wildfire or earthquake.


Right now the little town of Yamba (at the mouth of one such floodplain) is the focal point of one of those contests between residents seeking to protect the wellbeing and safety of a community and the political interests of three tiers of government aligned as they currently are within this state with the financial and commercial interests of property developers and land speculators both foreign and domestic.


Part of that contest is being played out in the matter of Valley Watch Inc v Clarence Valley Council, Case No. 2022/00290453, before the NSW Civil & Administrative Tribunal (Administrative and Equal Opportunity Division) in Sydney on Monday 17 October 2022 at a Case Conference (GIPA and Privacy) at which the progression of the matter through the Tribunal process will be decided.


Note: Full title of GIPA is the Government Information (Public Access) Act 2009 which in NSW is the vehicle under which a legally enforceable right to access most government information is exercised unless there is an overriding public interest against disclosure.


Clarence Valley Independent, 12 October 2022:















Valley Watch takes council to NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal


Eight years of frustration by local community group Valley Watch over Clarence Valley Council not releasing important Yamba floor level survey results will now be subjected to a review by the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal.


Valley Watch spokes-person Helen Tyas Tunggal said 14 years after Yamba’s existing flooding problem was identified in council’s 2008 flood study, and eight years since professional floor level surveys were done in 2014, affected residents are still unable to access the results.


Enough is enough” Ms Tyas Tunggal said.


14 years is too long.


The council has an obligation to act in the best interests of residents and stop keeping this information secret.”


The 2008 Yamba Floodplain Risk Management Study FRMS identified the issue of a lack of a floor level survey, but Ms Tyas Tunggal said it took another six years to be conducted.


Due to a lack of surveyed floor level data an assessment based on approximations,” the FRMS stated.


The approximations, Ms Tyas Tunggal said were made of the number of existing house floors that would be inundated including a 20-year flood (122 homes); a 100-year flood (1223 homes) and extreme flood (2144 homes).


It took until 2014 for the floor level survey to be conducted,”’ Ms Tyas Tunggal said.


(The residents were notified) as a part of the investigation work for the preparation of the Development Control Plan that will guide residential development in West Yamba, it is a requirement that floor levels of surrounding residential dwellings be ascertained,” affected residents were told by council.


These floor levels are required to determine whether any existing dwellings are at risk from the proposed future filling of appropriately zoned parts of West Yamba to enable future residential development.”


And yet those residents whose floors were surveyed have not been told by the Council what the results are,” Ms Tyas Tunggal said.


Valley Watch has made various attempts to clarify what has happened to the resulting documentation from the 2014 floor level survey.


As a result, the organisation has asked its solicitor to seek a review of Council’s refusal to release the information.


We think it is only fair for residents to be told how at risk of flooding their homes are,” Ms Tyas Tunggal said.


Council has that information and could make the information available if they wish.”


When council replied to Valley Watch’s request for information the written response stated “Premature release of the floor level data might (for instance) result in one or more sales falling through without the statutory immunity of Council being assured.”


We do not accept that by releasing floor level survey data council will lose its statutory Immunity,” Ms Tyas Tunggal said.


The statement however raises concerns that there is significant information contained within the survey results that residents and the public need to know.


We are asking the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal to take an independent look.”


A particular quote in the aforementioned article is revealing to say the least: 

“Premature release of the floor level data might (for instance) result in one or more sales falling through without the statutory immunity of Council being assured.”


One has to wonder why Clarence Valley Council would expose itself so blatantly, in asserting words to the effect that it believes it is perfectly proper for council to keep the full range of flood risk information from existing homeowners, as well as to actively involve itself in duping prospective homebuyers and presumably conveyancing agents acting on the buyer's behalf.


Such a coldly cruel expression of caveat emptor by an imperious Clarence Valley Council. 


It was interesting to note that the article set out below also appeared in that same issue of the Clarence Valley Independent. A well-intentioned article which voices the ideal while skirting around much of the problematic reality that is local government in 21 Century Australia.


Clarence Valley Independent, 12 October 2022:


Mayoral column 3 – Community engagement and consultation

October 12, 2022 -


In late 2021, during the Council election campaign, some candidates acknowledged that the Council should do much better in informing the community on matters of importance.


I believe that a local Council that consistently engages effectively with its community is helping to safeguard local democracy while placing people at the centre of local government. Perfunctory, irregular “consultation” should be unacceptable.


Councillors have received complaints of a lack of communication and response times to your communications. We are committed to continuous improvement in this regard. If you have experienced communication issues, I encourage you to contact me or your local councillor.


The level of community engagement undertaken should always be appropriate to the nature, complexity and impact of the issue, plan, project, or strategy. Adequate time and reasonable opportunity should be provided for people to present their views to Council in an appropriate manner and format. The Council should have proper regard to the reasonable expectations of the community, to the costs and benefits of the engagement process, and to intergenerational equity.



Thursday 13 January 2022

e-Petition and vigorous, sustained community lobbying saw 200ha of NSW core koala habitat protected in the last month of 2021

 

147 The Ruins Way, Port Macquarie NSW
IMAGE: realestate.com.au















On 24 November 2021 an e-Petition signed by 24,970 NSW residents was presented in the NSW Legislative Assembly by Greens MLA Tamara Green.


To the Speaker and Members of the Legislative Assembly,


The coastal region of Port Macquarie Hastings LGA has one of the largest remnant populations of koalas in NSW. This was mapped as a koala hotspot for the NSW Koala Strategy 2018 by the Office of Environment and Heritage.


In the Port Macquarie LGA, most koala habitat lies within private land, outside protected areas such as National Parks. The koala population suffered huge casualties with the 2019 bushfires. The remaining unburnt core habitat around Lake Innes has become critical to sustain those individuals that survived the fires. An assessment by DPIE’s Biodiversity and Conservation Division concluded that post-fire, the urban population of koalas is now critical to Port Macquarie-Hastings Council LGA overall population if it has any hope of recovery. However, their habitat is shrinking rapidly because of ongoing land clearing for greenfield urban development.


147 Ruins Way, at 200ha, is the largest piece of privately-owned unburnt core koala habitat east of the Pacific Highway and is currently on the market for residential development. The property also provides habitat for numerous other threatened species including the critically endangered Swift Parrot and Regent Honeyeater, plus threatened forest owls, Square-tailed Kite, Little Lorikeet, Varied Sitella, Glossy-Black Cockatoo and Grey-headed Flying Fox.


We request that the NSW government purchase this land (e.g. with the $193 million set aside for koala population recovery) and protect it in perpetuity via a Nature Reserve or other secure, non-reversible tenure.”


On Christmas Eve, 24 December 2021 the NSW Minister for Environment and Heritage James Griffin formally responded that the former minister Matt Kean had purchased this vital koala habitat at 147 Ruins Way. The completed purchase from property developer Vilro Pty Ltd, being jointly funded by Koala Conservation Australia (KCA) and the NSW Government, with KCA supplying $3.5 million towards purchase cost and government the remainder believed to be in the vicinity of $7 million.


The e-petition is scheduled for debate on Thursday, 17 February 2022.


147 The Ruins Way, Port Macquarie NSW
IMAGE: Yahoo! News




Tuesday 14 December 2021

It was the Baird Coalition Government which created the NSW Biodiversity Offsets Scheme (BOS) and successive NSW Liberal-Nationals governments have allowed it to become a trojan horse for unsustainable development and financial rorting


It was the Baird Coalition Government which created the NSW Biodiversity Offsets Scheme (BOS) which was established under the Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016

 Under this scheme, applications for development or clearing approvals must set out how impacts on biodiversity will be avoided and minimised. The remaining residual impacts can be offset by the purchase and/or retirement of biodiversity credits or payment to the Biodiversity Conservation Fund. 

 Landholders can enter into Biodiversity Stewardship Agreements to create offset sites on their land to generate biodiversity credits. These credits are then available to the market for purchase by developers, landholders or the Biodiversity Conservation Trust to offset the impacts of development or clearing. 

However it was a scheme loathed by the mining industry from the start as an impediment on its commercial interests and by the industry's supporters, such as National Party political robber baron and then Deputy Prime Minister John Barilaro. It was also a scheme heartily disliked by local government areas fighting to retain biodiversity, maintain healthy water sources and protect remaining forest.


Clarence Valley Independent, 15 December 2021:


A report tabled at the August 24 Clarence Valley Council (CVC) meeting warns that the NSW Biodiversity Offset Scheme (BOS) has had the opposite effect to its intention: instead of protecting the valley’s natural environment, it has “ensured a net loss to biodiversity, often of our most threatened flora and fauna”.... 


Staff advised councillors of four key issues: “a net loss of biodiversity across the LGA, a lack of stewardship sites in the Clarence (currently, there are only two stewardship sites in the Clarence), a lack of transparency in the BOS, and inconsistencies in offset prices. 


 “There is little confidence in this legislation for biodiversity conservation as offsets can be facilitated outside of the CVC local government area,” staff wrote. 


 “…credit suppliers are located all over the state, hence, if a developer can source credits, they are unlikely to be sourced within the Clarence, creating a ‘net loss’ of biodiversity.” 


On the lack of transparency, staff wrote: “Many plant community types on the floodplain, which comprises a large percentage of land being developed in the Clarence, are threatened ecological communities (TEC), which are to be offset for the same TEC, forcing developers to pay into the fund as the sole way to offset credits, as there are no locally available credits. 


“There is no way to determine if this money deposited in the trust is then used to facilitate recovery or protection of TECs in the Clarence – creating biodiversity loss.”....


Clarence Valley Council was not alone in expressing Northern NSW concerns as the Inquiry's submissions list confirmed. 


The NSW Parliament Portfolio Committee No. 7 - Environment and Planning's Inquiry into the Integrity of the NSW Biodiversity Offsets Scheme will not report until 1 March 2022, so the jury is still out on the Perrottet Coalition Government's response to its yet to be completed investigation.


However, one issue is being addressed.......



Environment reporter Lisa Fox (left)writing in The Guardian, 10 December 2021:




Officials working on conservation matters in the New South Wales environment department have been barred from holding financial interests in the state’s biodiversity offset scheme.


This follows an investigation of the department’s management of potential conflicts of interest.


Senior officials told a parliamentary inquiry on Friday that staff who work on the offset scheme or in the department’s biodiversity, conservation and science sections had been told they could not work in those roles and hold personal interests in properties and companies that were involved in the financial trade of offset credits.


It follows two external investigations that were commissioned by the department after Guardian Australia uncovered a series of failures in offset programs.


Offsets exist to allow developers to compensate for environmental damage in one area by delivering an equivalent environmental benefit in another.


But there have been problems with the system, including in one case a 20-year delay in delivering environmental protection and so-called “double-dipping” by developers in areas of urban sprawl.


Guardian Australia also revealed the state and federal governments bought tens of millions of dollars in offset credits from properties linked to consultants whose company advised the government on development in western Sydney.


The reporting triggered a string of reviews, including one by the legal firm Maddocks and one by the consultancy Centium examining how the environment department had managed potential conflicts of interest associated with staff holding financial interests in offset sites….


Dean Knudsen, the deputy secretary for biodiversity, conservation and science, told Friday’s hearing of the offset inquiry there had been fewer than five officials with such financial interests.


After the reviews, the department has introduced a new conflict of interest protocol that deems some investments “high risk” and presenting an “unacceptable risk to the integrity” of the scheme.


Knudsen said as a result, staff in certain sections could no longer participate in the scheme and those with historic interests had 12 months to divest.


For departmental staff we’ve effectively said you’re not supposed to be participating in the scheme,” he said.


If you have historically, we’ve told them what you have to do to effectively distance them from that.”


The Greens MLC Cate Faehrmann, who is chairing the inquiry, said the changes were welcome.


This should have happened at the start of the scheme to help prevent the types of windfall gains by a few individuals with detailed knowledge of the offset industry,” she said.


However, we also need to see a tightening of conflicts of interest [rules] within the industry itself, including within ecological consultancies.”


Officials were also asked about delays in securing permanent protection of offset sites to compensate for habitat destruction caused by coalmines in NSW.


Responses to questions on notice in the parliament from the independent MLC Justin Field state that of the 41 coalmines approved in New South Wales in the past decade, one did not require offsets, 14 had not yet triggered the requirement to deliver their offsets, nine had land set aside but permanent protections were not yet in place, and 17 had “substantially finalised” their offsets.


.but certain aspects – such as finalisation of some of the legal arrangements protecting the site – were outstanding.


Officials agreed the process for securing offsets for mines had not been “as timely as [they] should be”.


Field said it was not good enough that “not one single coalmine approved in the last decade has secured their required offsets through finalised in-perpetuity arrangements”.


The government needs to improve the transparency around what the hold-up is, put a deadline on finalising these arrangements and hold these mine operators to that deadline,” he said. 


Read the full article here.


Thursday 16 September 2021

Clarence Valley Council opened the door wide and invited a ravenous wolf inside


Clarence Valley Council has agreed to allow another local government outside the Clarence River catchment area to purchase a 50 per cent interest in vital water supply licenses on the Nymboida River sub-catchment.


This effort to save money on the final purchase price agreed with state-owned Essential Energy will cost Clarence Valley communities dearly in the future, as Coffs Harbour City Council continues expanding its rate base through unsustainable urban and industry development to the detriment of the aesthetic, cultural, environmental, economic values of the Clarence River system.



Clarence Valley Independent, 15 September 2021:


After many years of secret negotiations between Clarence Valley Council (CVC) and Essential Energy (EE), Coffs Harbour City Council (CHCC) and CVC will each hold a 50 per cent share of “the disused Nymboida Hydro Power Scheme and associated water licences” once the deal is settled……


Mr Lindsay clarified the ownership breakdown, given that CHCC was not party to the confidential agreement between CVC and EE.


The actual land and infrastructure are purchased by the CVC, in name, but Coffs Harbour, by their regional water supply agreement [with CVC], will contribute 50 per cent,” he said.


Mr Lindsay said CVC met with EE yesterday (after the paper’s editorial deadline) to discuss a minor subdivision, to accommodate EE’s existing substation, and whatever else needs to be done to “achieve settlement”, including the lodgement of a development application (DA) for the substation subdivision.


Mr Lindsay said the settlement period was “lengthy” and that the “water licences haven’t been transferred yet”, so he was unable to provide an estimated finalisation date.


Just so we are clear on the value of the purchase,” he said, “the whole process has been reviewed by NSW Treasury and they’ve given their okay.”……


Meanwhile, all references to the Nymboida power and water decisions made by councillors over past years were removed from CVC’s ‘Council Meeting Checklist – Update on Actions Taken’, following the July 2021 CVC meeting, including the investigation of recommissioning the hydro station.


When asked why the items were removed, Mr Lindsay said, “It’ll become clear when the confidential resolution form the July extraordinary meeting is made [public]; it’ll become clear then.”…..


Coffs Harbour City Council’s general manager, Steve McGrath, said the deal was an “essential step in concluding security for the Coffs Harbour City and CVC water supplies”.


CHCC look forward to working with CVC to formalise the governance arrangements around the regional water supply scheme, through the appropriate treatment and recognition of the applicable water supply assets involved in the Nymboida power station and licences,” he said in the media release…...